In this study, the authors report their successful efforts to increase voltage production in a Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC), which is a system in which microorganisms produce electricity while performing their normal metabolism.

Oxidative damage and neuro-inflammation were the key pathways implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. In this study, 30 natural extracts from plant roots and leaves with extensive anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties were consumed by Drosophila melanogaster. Several assays were performed to evaluate the efficacy of these combinational extracts on delaying the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The experimental group showed increased motor activity, improved associative memory, and decreased lifespan decline relative to the control group.

Anti-diabetic drugs like Metformin are known to increase gut permeability, and this has a negative impact on patient health. These authors hypothesized that this can be mitigated using purple sweet potato extract, which is high anthocyanin content, that feeds bacteria metabolism to decrease gut permeability.

In this study, high school students and teachers responded to a survey consisting of Likert-type scale, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions regarding various aspects of remote instruction. After analyzing the data collected, they found that remote learning impacted high school students academically and socially. Students took longer to complete assignments, and both students and teachers felt that students do not learn as much in remote learning compared to in-person instruction. However, most high school students demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of the topics, and an overall negative impact on students' grades was not detected.

Here, recognizing the recognizing the growing threat of non-biodegradable plastic waste, the authors investigated the ability to use a modified enzyme identified in bacteria to decompose polyethylene terephthalate (PET). They used simulations to screen and identify an optimized enzyme based on machine learning models. Ultimately, they identified a potential mutant PETases capable of decomposing PET with improved thermal stability.

Reducing paint drying time is an important step in improving production efficiency and reducing costs. The authors hypothesized that decreased humidity would lead to faster drying, ultraviolet (UV) light exposure would not affect the paint colors differently, white light exposure would allow for longer wavelength colors to dry at a faster rate than shorter wavelength colors, and substrates with higher roughness would dry slower. Experiments showed that trials under high humidity dried slightly faster than trials under low humidity, contrary to the hypothesis. Overall, the paint drying process is very much dependent on its surrounding environment, and optimizing the drying process requires a thorough understanding of the environmental factors and their interactive effects with the paint constituents.

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a bio-based, compostable plastic that is comparable in cost to petroleum-based plastics. This study aims to evaluate the effects of UV treatment and mechanical chopping on the degradation of PLA. Based on their findings, the authors propose an alternative PLA degradation process that may be more time and energy efficient than current processes.

Overwatering and underwatering grass are widespread issues with environmental and financial consequences. This study developed an accessible method to assess grass water use efficiency (WUE) combining smartphone imaging with open access color unmixing analysis. The method can be applied in automated irrigation systems or apps, providing grass WUE assessment for regular consumer use.

Surface tension and viscosity are both measures of how "sticky" a liquid is, but are they related? The authors here investigate the surface tension and viscosity of mixtures of water with different concentrations of agar agar, flour, or detergent. Surprisingly, they find that the least viscous mixtures had the strongest surface tensions, indicating that the two properties are not linked.

Quantum computers can perform computational tasks beyond the capability of classical computers, such as simulating quantum systems in materials science and chemistry. Quantum teleportation is the transfer of quantum information across distances, relying on entangled states generated by quantum computing. We sought to mitigate the error of quantum teleportation which was simulated on IBM cloud quantum computers.